FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT WEBB WILDER - PAGE 2

Ask a dozen different people and you`ll get 12 different reasons why Bruce Springsteen has been popular. But certainly one must be the faint, bittersweet air of nostalgia that runs through some of his songs. The feeling is reinforced by strains of roots rock and R&B, influences often strongly suggested by the prominent sax work of E Street Band member Clarence Clemons. The sax, at least to most rock listeners, seems irretrievably locked in the past, when jump bands, early R&B groups and assorted hep cats made it a favored instrument in popular music.

It has been 13 years since Maria Muldaur made the Top 10 with "Midnight at the Oasis," her 1974 hit single. Since then, the singer-who performed with John Sebastian in the Even Dozen Jug Band in the early 1960s and went on to join the Jim Kweskin Jug Band before going solo-has been pretty low-profile as far as the pop scene goes, but she hasn`t been idle. She has performed in the national touring company productions of "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Pump Boys and Dinettes" and recorded about a half-dozen blues, jazz and gospel-flavored albums for independent labels.

Webb Wilder works hard, rocks hard, eats hard, sleeps hard, he grew big and he wears glasses ('cause he needs 'em). Heck, he'd better live like that -- because as his fans well know, that's the singer's credo. And evidence of all that hard stuff is everywhere in his two-bedroom Nashville apartment. Here, an old Gibson guitar with the name "Roy" inlaid with rhinestones in the headstock. There, a row of outsider art bottlecap men. In the kitchen, a computer on the table, drumsticks in the cabinet.

In the liner notes for his latest album, "Monkey Land," Omar Dykes-lead singer and guitarist for Omar and the Howlers-remarks that the album's title pretty much sums up the way he views society. If asked, he will elaborate: "Well, if you take Darwin's theory seriously, we`re all kinda monkey-like, you know?" says the gravel-voiced Mississippi native with a laugh. "I`ve met some real educated people, with 10 degrees hangin` on their wall, and they go out and have a few drinks at a club, do a little dancing, and next thing you know, their knuckles are draggin` the ground.

He has described himself in the past as "the last of the full-grown men, the last of the boarding-house people, a man who was never a child and will never have children, a guy who knows every thrift shop and plate-lunch joint in town . . . and a guy who has dedicated his life to both kinds of music: rock and roll." Lately, he has added the phrase "burning god of love" to the dossier. But Webb Wilder-a Mississippi-born Nashville resident who heads up a band that bears his name-might just as easily call himself a distiller of the decades, a child of the late `60s and early `70s who developed an interest in the music of the `50s and has been trying to pull together the sounds of those eras during the `80s.

Jazz fusion guitarist Larry Carlton remembers April 6, 1988, with startling clarity. He was working at his Hollywood Hills home when he saw a dog run past, followed by two teenagers. When Carlton went to close an open office door, one of the boys stopped and fired a gun, shooting him in the neck at point-blank range. "I can tell you exactly what I was thinking," Carlton said recently. "I didn`t lose consciousness. I walked about 10 steps and I laid down on the floor and I said, `Jesus forgive me my sins and let's go home.

Paula Abdul Captivated (Virgin) (STAR)(STAR) There's little on this five-song video that one couldn`t find on MTV, whether it's the animated and overplayed "Opposites Attract" or the overblown video for "Blowing Kisses in the Wind." (The current video hit "Vibeology" is not included.) Abdul's commenting on the videos and the brief behind-the-scenes shots are hardly worth the purchase price either. The only surprise is that Abdul faked her skinny-fied video of "Promise of a New Day" by having her image projected onto the scenic Hawaiian backgrounds.